Friday, March 26, 2010

Here are some pictures of my new booth spot at the Portland Saturday Market. My 2010 season spot. Last year I was right in the front on the steps facing the river and the stage where musicians play and the fountain where little kids frolic. That spot was really a twist of good luck - for some reason the vendors with more seniority than myself didn't think it'd be a great spot, which left it available for my taking. Which I did. This year it was not available, but I got a beautiful spot nestled in the heart of the new market area. I have great neighbors (good company is key!) and my booth is protected from the wind (huge perk - I don't need that zillion pounds of canopy weights that my spot last year required)... but I get no direct sunlight and I am too far from the music stage to hear any tunes... this sorta makes me sad. I am not in love with my new spot. Admittedly I haven't been trying very hard to bond with it. I have opted to not vend at the mere mention of bad weather from the lying weather stations. However, on the days that I've been there it has been beautiful and wonderful. Just exhausting. Its been a lot of years now that I have been starting up a new season a the market and the amount of work it takes is sorta a smack in the ass. Between setting up the booth and talking to people all day, its intense!

Anyhow - come out and enjoy the good weather this weekend. Saturday is supposed to be nice out, so I will be there. Come find me and buy a mobile for a friend :)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

It was amazingly gorgeous in Portland today. Tim and I went out to Sauvies Island and walked along the beach (its a long pretty beach!). I liked the look of the colorful barges that were traveling the river. And the mountains in the distance looked amazing. Nothing like a view with a beach a river and a mountain.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

I love getting pictures from my Dad in my email box - today it was water droplets falling. They are amazing! What fun!I think water droplets illustrate the concept of letting go in a visual way. That moment of the water droplet losing its individual identity and becoming part of so much more... its an interesting moment, that instant where the letting go takes place. Letting go is not easy.

Surface tension is crazy cool stuff. I am not sure why this last picture is red, but I like it. A lighting technique?

Friday, March 19, 2010

Today I celebrated this amazing Portland early spring. My magnolia tree is full bloom (a month early I might add). It was warm and sunny enough to sit out in my backyard with some lady friends and all their little kiddos, we had a tea party. :) It was wonderful. I loved every minute of it. I am a sucker for this springtime weather and all the flowering trees. The rest of the country is getting snow - here in P-town its gorgeous!Sure I could have worked today. But seriously, it was so well worth playing hooky and getting some vitamin D.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

This week is all about production in the Garden of Leah. I've been applying (and getting accepted!!) to a lot of big shows and the production must begin! Cutting, cleaning, firing, printing, assembling... there is going to be a lot of that in the next few weeks.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Monday, March 8, 2010

After a long weekend at the market working, today I played hookie with Tim and we ran errands and walked around different parts of town taking pictures. The cherry blossom trees on the waterfront were calling to my camera. They were saying "Leah come take pictures!!"Look at all this gorgeousness! I love the design of this park.

Its the Portland Oregon version of the avenues of cherry blossom trees in Washington DC. Beautiful pink and white flower laden trees adorn the waterfront on the North side of Burnside in Waterfront Park. I love this picture with the benches. The park benches have beautiful scroll work with details of cast roses.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The trees were full bloom, the weather on Saturday was sunny and mid 60's. It was beautiful and everyone in Portland came down to the waterfront this weekend! The trees above are on Naito Parkway on the corner in front of the fire department. They are so beautiful. Check out that magnolia! Its already in full magnificent tulip-tea-cup-style bloom!

The Oregonian did a great article Sunday morning about the 2010 Grand Opening of the market - Judi (pictured above in her booth Curly Girl Jewelry) was featured in the article among many good friends and great market vendors! Check out the new glass display case that Judi built (pictured above encasing the bowls of lentils), its great: no one can set their coffee cups on it (they will slide off the top), she can reach in from behind to access jewels to show customers, and best of all no more little kids sticking their fingers into the lentils and happily burying the jewelry. Brilliant. Well done Judi!Here is a picture from south of the market in Waterfront Park. I had forgotten to put my parking pass on the car (which was parked in the parking garage a few blocks away) so I had to run to the car mid-day and produce this parking pass (whew - no ticket! yeah for my swiss-cheese memory!) and on the way back I took this picture. The market was packed. We had a record breaking day. Between photographers coming out to take pictures of the cherry blossoms along the waterfront, college kids coming down to have lunch, tourists coming down to check out the local duds, and locals enjoying the beautiful weekend - the place was bopping! The food court has never been more popular, most vendors ran out of food (this is unheard of!) by mid-day. It was great to see so many people enjoying the Portland Saturday Market. Kudos to Reid Decker for doing a great job on the advertising!! Thanks Reid - well done!I wish I took more pictures of the cherry blossoms. You can see them in the background here, with the Steel Bridge behind them. I think its supposed to start raining tomorrow, so I might have missed my chance to get a good picture. They are amazing (and blooming way early this year!)

Do you use Google Alert? I hope the answer is yes, if not - go sign up now! Put in your name and your business name... you'll get emailed when other websites, blogs... frankly anything on the internet happens to mention you or your business will end up in your email box with a link. Its awesome. Its free. And its really useful to any small business-person!

Here my google alert moment for the evening: a blog entry in which this nice artist (fellow mobile maker!!) referred to me as

"Portland's own glass mobilist and Etsy juggernaut Leah Pellegrini"

After looking up "juggernaut" in Wikipedia I can only assume it means one of 3 things.1. I am a force to be reckoned with2. I am a force well-worth avoiding3. I am a force to behold!

Wow. I don't really know whether or not to feel good about this. Maybe this was just a creative word choice. I'll go with the gut feeling that we can go with #3 cuz this blog writer meant to be complimentary. Regardless, his word choice is very entertaining.

I can't let this go without a bit more fun (not just yet - its too fascinating! Wiki alone did not satisfy me!)

Juggernaut internet research results: (can you see my face going "wha?!?!" as I read these!!!)

Friday, March 5, 2010

Portland Saturday Market opens this weekend! I'll be there. I've got a new spot that is more buried in the aisles. If you come down and find me (feel free to shop! we artists need the income!) I'll be giving out little free-bies to blog readers who find me! Its a scavenger hunt of sorts!

The weather is supposed to be nice. The trees are all blooming - come down to the waterfront and enjoy the nice weekend! I will be getting up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and working myself a little dizzy setting up my booth and whatnot. Its always extra hard at the beginning of the season. A shock to the system.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Check out these amazing boxes I made today! (big Thanks to my friend Maggie) She owns an Accu Cut System and oh my goodness it is this fun die cutting machine! I really like playing with crafting machines - and this one impressed the socks off me!

This is the machine. The first picture shows the types of boxes I cut (and yes, I stamped a bunch all ready!) Below is a picture of the die cutting pad for the small square box... you put a piece of paper on top of the foam pad and turn the crank, roll it thru and bam - you have a box cut out (complete with fold creases)

Here it is in action!

These little purse boxes made me swoon. And don't they look cute with my stamp! I am going to use these for packaging necklaces at the Portland Saturday market.

These little flat boxes are also perfect for jewelry... I stamped the bottoms of the larger box.

These little rectangular boxes are perfect for earrings or small figurines... a little bit of ribbon thru the top. Oh my goodness, I love my new packaging!!

I like a good to-do list. Keeps me on point. I like reading other people's to-do lists as well. Wanna read mine? (you will find most of this pertains to the Portland Saturday Market this weekend)

configure my booth set up for this coming weekend (I am not a corner this year, I have been a corner for the last 6 seasons or so... this will be odd... I'll probably procrastinate and simply figure it out on Saturday morning... but I may create a new table this week for the non-corner spot...)

clean up my 10x10 tent and take it back down to my storage under the PSM offices

make more mobiles

create at least one very large mobile to hang in the back corner of the booth

blog an announcement that the market is opening again this weekend

go down to the Crystal Ballroom and get tickets for March 4th on March 4th

make more yoga lady figures (now I have card sets to go with them!)

make sure I have boxes to package sales

fill out the paperwork to submit my new cards as a new product for my booth

I am sure there is more... this is just what is on my mind... I have a mild cold (thanks Tim) and my brain is sorta filled with snot. All I accomplished yesterday was shipping. Although I did A LOT of shipping. Today I am going over to my friend Maggie's house to make crafty boxes for packaging my little creations. She has an Accucut Machine and some stencils for boxes, I will be sure to take pictures :)